Question

What caused the Jews to rebel against Syrian rule?

Answer 1

Probably the earliest problems between them were regional. In the later period of the Divided Monarchy (Israel and Judea) one of the strongest enemies of the Israelite monarchies was the Kingdom of Aram, which was a Secondary Power just as the Israelite monarchies were. (The Primary Powers were Egypt and the Mesopotamian Kingdoms - Assyria and Babylon.) The Bible records the story of Naaman, an Aramean general, who is healed by the Prophet Elisha. While the Biblical story does not mean that this actually happened, the way that the King of Israel reacts to Naaman's peaceful entry into Israel reflects the enmity between the Israelite monarchies and the Arameans. Most of their disputes were territorial and dealt with the areas in the eastern Galilee and the Quneitra region. These territorial disputes were directly related to the amount of power that each could exert over smaller regional allies such as the Phoenician States in Lebanon or the transjordanian kingdoms.